President Donald Trump said he is weighing whether to strike Iran again or pursue a negotiated settlement, raising the prospect of a fresh American military campaign and questions about what another round of bombing could accomplish that months of intermittent fighting have not.
“Do I make a deal with them or do I finish them off? That’s the only question,” Trump said in a Sunday interview with Fox News, signaling he is still considering another major military operation.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have reportedly developed plans for an intensive three-day bombing campaign against Iran, with an expanded target list that includes energy infrastructure and facilities vital to the Iranian economy. CNN reported that American forces could launch an operation within 96 hours of receiving Trump’s orders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team have openly advocated overthrowing Iran’s government.
But former U.S. officials and experts questioned whether another round of strikes could deliver the Trump administration’s elusive strategic victory. A successful campaign against Iran’s remaining missile forces, military installations or command infrastructure would not necessarily force its leaders to surrender or shatter the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus, told The Washington Sun.
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And a broader campaign could expose U.S. troops and regional allies to retaliation, potentially pulling Washington into a more prolonged and destructive war.
Jason Campbell, a former Pentagon official now at the Middle East Institute, said U.S. military options appear confined to airstrikes, while Iran’s dispersed command structures have been designed to survive the destruction of military facilities and senior leaders.
“I fail to see how the United States and Israel are three or four days of strikes away from what would be a strategic-level change,” Campbell said.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has supported previous American military action against Iran, argued against new strikes. Trump has “a winning hand,” he said, by sticking with his naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and intensifying economic pressure.
“The president can box in Tehran more effectively and slow the Islamic Republic’s rebuild of its nuclear, missile and military programs, and drive the regime to have to expend a declining amount of capital on a greater series of things,” Taleblu said. “Rather than have Uncle Sam or Israel be blamed … you put the burden and the onus of escalation onto the regime.”
The Pentagon is preparing to reinforce its presence in the Middle East, with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit reportedly heading to the region, along with another aircraft carrier. Those deployments could add 10,000 to 15,000 sailors and Marines to the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel already in the region.
Military analysts said more ambitious objectives, including seizing Iranian territory or overthrowing the government, would require a major ground operation — far beyond the forces available in the region and what the administration has so far been willing to risk.
Analysts estimate that securing shipping through the Strait of Hormuz would require at least 100,000 troops to occupy hundreds of miles of Iranian coastline, extending some 30 miles inland to protect against Iranian missiles.
The operation would entail large-scale amphibious and airborne assaults along a marshy coastline with few suitable landing sites. American forces would have to assemble within range of Iranian missiles, then face conventional attacks and insurgent resistance once ashore, risking heavy casualties without a guaranteed result.
“Even if you wanted to do that, where on Earth in that region are you going to stage the sufficient forces to prepare for such an operation,” said Campbell, who recently war-gamed the scenario with military planners. “Because right now, Iran has either destroyed or made very unsafe pretty much every installation that the U.S. would potentially use for any kind of a major ground operation.”
Ben Connable, a former Marine officer and RAND Corporation military analyst now with the Battle Research Group, said another air campaign could weaken Iran’s conventional military without really changing the conflict. The U.S. hasn’t shown the appetite for the ground invasion needed to take out the Iranian government.
“I don’t see any way around a ground invasion unless you’re just planning on luck,” Connable said. “And luck in this case would be the Iranian economy collapses, or there’s a revolt against the leadership, and that can’t be predetermined.”
Connable also warned that Washington could stumble into a ground conflict without choosing one. A downed American aircraft could trigger a combat search-and-rescue operation involving hundreds of troops operating inside hostile territory.
Iranian officials, meanwhile, have warned that renewed attacks would not force Tehran to change its position.
“Recently, there has been talk of a new war, but I am already thinking about the post-war period,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday during a televised event in Tehran, according to an Arab News translation. “Whether there is war or not, our policies remain the same.”
Iran, meanwhile, has threatened to expand its retaliation beyond American military targets. Officials have warned that new strikes could trigger attacks on airports, pipelines, undersea internet cables and other civilian infrastructure across the Persian Gulf, as well as U.S. bases and warships.
Connable said he considers attacks on Gulf Arab states and commercial shipping particularly credible threats, because they are “less well defended than a warship” and because they could be used to “pump the price of oil back up again” and strengthen Tehran’s negotiating leverage.
Iranian officials have also suggested the war could expand. “Our strategy is ‘zero red lines,’” Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran’s nuclear negotiator, told The Guardian last week. “The war will continue longer and in a wider geographical area than the enemy anticipates.”
The threat is already prompting precautions. Axios reported that Jay Clayton, the director of national intelligence, warned Friday that Iran “substantially increased” its efforts to target American diplomats and officials in the Middle East and beyond, with lethal plots reaching “advanced stages.”
The State Department has ordered nonessential embassy personnel and their families to leave Saudi Arabia and has reduced staffing at other diplomatic posts in the region. The Pentagon withdrew about a dozen B-1 bombers from a British airbase this month following warnings of a possible Iranian-backed attack.
Connable warned of a threat that has yet to fully emerge: terrorist attacks by Iranian operatives or networks against Americans beyond the battlefield.
“That is a capacity they have; they have not demonstrated it,” Connable said. “The more desperate we make them, the more likely they are to resort to terrorism.”
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